The present invention relates to in-flight entertainment systems for passenger aircrafts and more particularly relates to a method and system for measuring system availability.
Commercial passenger airlines continuously try to make air travel as enjoyable as possible. One of such efforts is directed at providing in-flight entertainment systems (xe2x80x9cIFExe2x80x9d) for passengers on the aircraft. One of the earliest forms of IFE is probably the audio programs through the plastic ear jacks. Then there were the individual systems to offer both audio and video programming. Nowadays, in addition to audio and video programming, passengers begin to expect the airlines to offer a host of features such as video-on-demand, video games, shopping, access to the Internet, phone and facsimile, and landscape camera.
To remain competitive, airlines respond by installing more and more gadgets on-board and at the same time demanding the suppliers for such gadgets to guarantee certain level of performance and availability during flight. Not surprisingly, the more electronics that are crammed into the limited cabin space, the more likely something will malfunction, thus severely affecting the travel experience of the passengers. Airlines thus want to make sure that the suppliers are held accountable by some standards. Measuring system availability for IFEs allows the airlines to ensure that they get their money""s worth either in the form of greater customer satisfaction, or in the form of retaining commercial leverage, forcing suppliers to compensate and rectify the system malfunction.
The suppliers, on the other hand, find it necessary to meet airlines"" demands for performance and availability. However, each airline has its unique way of measuring system availability based on perceived priorities with different product features, thus resulting in a different set of factors for measurement. In other words, a 98% system availability for one airline customer does not mean the availability is 98% for another airline customer. Despite the lack of uniformity from one customer""s measurement to another customer""s, a supplier""s inability to pass certain negotiated availability criteria is always justification for the supplier to compensate that airline customer. Further, the process of customizing performance requirements for each customer and the process of evaluating and negotiating for compensation become quite cumbersome and labor-intensive for the supplier, not to mention the comparable resources needed by the airline customer on the other side. In a worst-case scenario, an IFE supplier may find itself facing requests for compensation from many of its customers, each one with its own set of availability criteria which the supplier""s products did not pass, resulting in conflicting priorities in remedying the system.
Conventionally, an IFE supplier has to rely on large teams of people to analyze and number-crunch for each customer, each month. After the number crunching, a supplier and a customer will attempt to reconcile to see if both parties agree with the numbers that are derived, and the underlying data. For example, if one system was unavailable because a passenger was found tampering with the wiring, that record can be disregarded for the reason of passenger abuse. While each airline customer has its unique approach to measuring system availability, the analysis is essentially derived from the maintenance and service reports of the same IFE hardware of the IFE supplier.
One industry group, Aeronautical Radio Inc., has drafted a set of standards, known as the draft ARINC 628 standard, for measuring IFE system availability. However, the methodology is found to be non-specific in the practical implementation resulting in ambiguous interpretations and therefore different applications for each customer. The standard includes a level of guidance which precludes a level of customization desired by airlines. This approach is therefore subject to abuse by suppliers who interpret it in a manner advantageous to their purpose, and subject to abandonment by airlines who cannot represent their priorities within the guidelines.
Therefore, it is desirable to be able to standardize the way to measure system performance and availability for IFE systems.
It is also desirable to be able to tailor or customize the methodology for different airline customers without affecting the standardized approach.
It is also desirable, if not imperative, to be able to reduce the administrative burden required to assess availability guarantees from customer to customer for the term of the performance guarantee. By way of example only, the magnitude of assessment is in excess of 10,000 individual flights per month spread between a few airlines. This level of effort increases with each airline and each different formula definition.
A method and system of measuring availability of an in-flight entertainment system (xe2x80x9cIFExe2x80x9d) on an aircraft is disclosed. The method comprises the steps of designating a subsystem weight factor to each subsystem of said IFE, with the sum of all subsystem weight factors being equal to a predetermined number, e.g. 100%, selecting at least one element of the subsystem to measure its availability, designating a zonal weight factor for at least one element based on a predetermined class to be serviced by at least one element, assigning an element loss factor based on a level of service for at least one element, collecting performance information regarding at least one element during a predetermined period of time, and measure the element""s availability based on the subsystem weight factor, the zonal weight factor, the element loss factor and the level of service.
The method and system in accordance with the present invention uses configurable data tables, which allows customization of the calculations without revising the tool, as shown in the following. For example, the element loss factors (xe2x80x9cELFxe2x80x9d) for the seat system may need to be unique for different IFE service levels to allow more accurate calculations when airlines deploy IFE functionality in phases. In addition, elements that do not apply to an airline""s configuration, as indicated by the different service levels, will have a factor of zero.